of 2011 to act a little bit responsibly when the budget -- when the debt ceiling of the country was raised. the "wall street journal," march 15, right after the budget comes out, they have been very critical of this. this is just one of them. well, first "politico," march 17, you know, the washington beltway publication "politico" that likes to dig up stuff. this is what they say -- quote -- "to win over her caucus, mary begins from the left of obama himself. apparently "politico's" conclusion is that the budget that came through committee was driven by people to the left of president obama. i know this, last year the chairman of the budget committee, kent conrad, was prepared to bring a budget to the floor. my staff and i, we spent weeks preparing for the markup. they met in the democratic conference, and some of the more liberal members hollered that they couldn't accept kent conrad's budget, the democratic budget he was going to set forth. and so they basically refused to let him mark up a budget in the budget committee and refused to bring it to the floor of the united states se